Setting up your SMTP and tips for emailing through Commusoft

The ability to email through Commusoft is great for centralising your processes and delivering personalised customer service. Whether you’re reaching out to give them a service reminder, send over an invoice or provide copies of certificates, there’s no denying that using branded documents and a carefully chosen email signature gives your communication an added touch of professionalism.

Taking the time to properly set up your emails before you dive in to using Commusoft will prevent any tricky issues arising in future, but if you haven’t done it yet there’s no time like the present! We receive dozens of support requests every week for issues relating to emailing and there’s often a simple fix relating to properly setting up your SMTP.

Please note, we have censored email addresses used in this post.

How to setup your SMTP

To do this, navigate to your Customer Settings page and select “Setup email.” If you have an email address that ends in something like @gmail.com or @hotmail.com, or you have an email through Gmail that has your domain name in it, you will most likely be able to setup your email by simply typing it in along with the password you use to access that email account. If Commusoft doesn’t recognise your email, you’ll then be prompted to also include the address of your outgoing mail server (smtp.gmail.com for example), your port number and the type of encryption your server supports.

Troubleshooting issues with SMTP setup

You may run into issues when it comes to setting up a Gmail address as Google is especially cautious about granting access to email accounts to outside applications. There are three things you can do to make sure it works as intended. These are:

Turning off 2-step verification

Allowing less secure apps

Unlocking Captcha

If you are unsure of how to do this, please follow the instructions linked in this article.

If you have tried to setup a Gmail account and it has blocked your attempt, you may find a security alert email from Google. Within this email, there will be a link to grant access to what it considers “less secure” apps.

Clicking that link will take you through to the below screen where you can turn on access.

It’s then simply a case of returning to the Commusoft web application and attempting setup again. If it still doesn’t work, try clearing your cache.

Once you’ve successfully added an email address, you will receive an email that requires you to verify it. If you don’t do this, you will see a red “Unverified” button next to your address.

This button will change to green once you’ve completed the verification process, as seen above.

If you don’t have your SMTP setup, you will still be able to send emails through Commusoft but they won’t be connected to your actual email account. These emails will include an unsubscribe link which is legally required for all communication from a business which is considered unsolicited. Your customers may accidentally unsubscribe which would make future business a bit complicated!

Adding and organising multiple email addresses

Just as you have a variety of email types, you may well wish to have a variety of email senders.

You can add additional email addresses in exactly the same way as your initial one. Once you have multiple verified addresses listed, you can reorder them. This won’t affect the way they appear anywhere else on Commusoft, it’s just to help you keep them organised on this page.

Your default address that emails appear to have been sent from is the first one that you set up, so make sure you specify an alternative if you want it to come from someone else.

Changing the email sender

So how exactly can you specify an alternative? Well, it’s important to note that not every email you send can be configured in this way. The key thing to look out for is a purple button. If there’s an option to send an email without a purple button, you won’t be able to access the settings which means you can’t specify a particular sender.

When you click “Send new email,” the email composer will appear in the bottom right hand corner. By clicking the settings (cog wheel icon) you can choose a different email address for the “From” field.

Once you’ve saved this option, you can return to your composer and configure your email further.

Adding recipients

You probably already know that you’re able to add attachments but you may not be aware that you can include additional recipients and CC contacts even if they’re not in your database. Simply type the email into the address bar alongside the recipient and press enter. If you don’t press enter, which will put a grey box around the address, that person will not receive it.

We hope you found this blog helpful and have your email now properly configured and ready to go!

As always, if you have any feature suggestions please pop them over to us here, and if you're having any problems with the software get in touch with the support team at support@commusoft.co.uk and they'll be happy to help you.